Tag Archives: birth

I watched Parenthood last night. I’m really starting to like that show. Weird, how your tastes change to fit your lifestyle (I also read Redbook now, not Glamour anymore!). The characters on there are each coming to terms with their own struggles and as one sister fights to keep her teenage daughter close, her brother loses his job and finds out his wife is pregnant on the same day.

Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.
Sometimes as you go through life, while you struggle to be in control, you simply cannot. At these times, you have to let go and watch where life takes you.

My son turned six months today, I am starting my own business and we’re looking at buying a house that may be the tightest of stretches for us. All of this added together with the day to day life of a new family and the hormones of a new mother is too much for me to handle. This week, I’m folding, I’ll lean back and watch. Some of the chips will land where they will and as they do, the path will clear for me to control the others.

Apparently I got old somewhere along the way. I didn’t notice it until it was pointed out to me by my coworker that keeps saying things like, “Wow, I was the youngest person on Jury Duty. Everyone else was old – I think the next eldest person was in their 30s.”

It bugged me to start with, but now I’ve decided to embrace it. So, in the spirit of getting older I feel I am allowed to start using parent terms without incrimination. I will start saying “wireless” meaning radio not cell phones and I will point out the ridiculous youth of today.

Prime example: What the hell is up with models these days? Check out the girl in the center from ShopBop.com:

This dress is like so heavy

What’s up with her? Is she so skinny she can’t hold herself up? Or is she just sick of modeling? Either way, I don’t want to spend $348.00 to wear this clearly heavy dress. Do you think it’s made of pink lacy chain mail? Can you imagine yourself like this at a party? I would think people would get awfully tired of me sighing. And I would spill my drink all over the carpet while shrugging off questions like, “Why are you standing like that?” and “Are you suffering from polio?”

You know you’re a mom when you want to tell high earning models to stand up straight.

I have some friends that have no interest in having children now or in the future. No problem say I – we can still be friends. But can we?

Turns out it’s not as easy to remain friends when you have such a huge difference between you. On the surface, this just means that you don’t talk to each other about children, you just go out to dinner and act out your old life, prechild right? Sure. It’s possible to not talk about the one thing that occupies 50% of your brain at any given moment, the thing that keeps you awake at night, the things that runs your schedule. At least for a couple hours. Except, you have to get a babysitter to go out. So, scheduling that dinner is not as easy as it used to be. But they’re understanding right?

Well… not as much as you might have thought. One friend told me when I was pregnant he was quite sure I wasn’t going to be “one of those people that posted about my baby on Facebook.” This was a relief to him. Apparently the info I share on Facebook should pertain to the mass audience. So, I made a “no baby updates group” on Facebook, but it rubbed me the wrong way that he wouldn’t want to know about this part of my life.

After I had Little Man, I was surprised at the lack of interest of another friend. First time we ran into him at an event, he didn’t mention the child strapped via
Baby Bjorn to my front. Acted like he wasn’t even there. In the last four months that same friend has continued his strange comments and lack of regard for our child. Today he referred to my son as an “expelled parasite.”

I know that folks that choose to not have children hear a lot of complaints from friends and family hoping to persuade them, which is annoying. If you don’t want children, don’t have ’em. Having children is like getting a tattoo on your face – you’ll never be able to go back so you’d better be committed. I have learned that you should never tell someone how to raise their child, your opinion on having a child when they don’t ask for my opinion, or that they shouldn’t have cut their hair off once it’s done. But on the flip side, if you aren’t having kids,
try to think of the most important thing in your life – something that relies entirely on you for survival – your dog, your business, your hamster, whatever. Multiply your thoughts and feelings, fears and hopes for this thing by a million and that’s close to how a parent feels about their child. It’s a completely unconditional love, the strongest feeling you will ever experience. I would give
up my life for my child.

When my husband and I were planning to get pregnant we would talk a lot about how our child wouldn’t rule our life. We vowed that we would stay close with friends that had no children now or in their hopeful future. We never considered the fact that those friends may not be having the same
conversation.

So, listen Sophie the giraffe. When I was a little girl I used to “run away” when I was unhappy. I would shout something dramatic like, “THAT’S IT!!,” slam the back door of our house and stomp down the driveway, only stopping to look behind me to make sure someone was watching. They were obviously out of sight, so I held my head up high and continued my march. I would get to the road in front of our house and sneak down to hide under the bush. Honestly, Sophie, I was too scared of strangers to go any further and running away wasn’t my real motivation. But I think you know that already.

I would sit under that bush imagining my mother crying wretchedly, howling, “Oh if only I had given her a Barbie instead of Sindy, the English knock off. Maybe she would still be here.” The police would come, the whole town would start lamenting how great I am… until I stroll out only to be covered in hugs and kisses, carnivals would be thrown in my honor and Barbies would rain from the sky. However, after about six or eight minutes, I couldn’t hear the sirens so I’d wander out and see no one. A little further and still no one. Finally, I’d walk back into the house and realize that no one had even noticed I was gone. My point in this fascinating, if not lengthy, story Sophie, is that life goes on.

So, if you happen to be hiding behind little man’s bed (*note to self: check behind bed) thinking, “Oh, they miss me so much,” you may be surprised to find out that maybe we don’t.

And if giraffes understand irony, I apologize. I realize that in writing a blog about your missing status, I might be showing that we do actually miss you, but… umm… ok, I have no explanation.

Oh, just come home or crawl out from behind the bed please. I’ll look into giraffe carnivals for you.

Sophie has gone walkabout. I thought she left the table when we were eating brunch; perhaps she needed to use the little giraffe’s room, I don’t know. But when I called the restaurant to ask if they had a short plastic giraffe who answers to the name of Sophie, the news was not good. And it wasn’t accompanied by the small chuckle I had expected either.

She did visit the beach earlier that day; maybe she liked it so much she made her way slowly back that way. Either way, Sophie, if you’re reading this, please come home. There’s a little man that misses you very much and couldn’t concentrate on his cereal this morning without your squeaking bringing him back to the present time. I know you might be a little offended by his mouthing of your nose, your legs and your neck, but you’ll never find that kind of love elsewhere. Not at the beach, nowhere.

And, please don’t be offended by the other giraffes in his life. After all, he told you when you met that he was not a one-giraffe kind of guy.

Little Man with Lean Beans

Little Man in his giraffe throne

On the move with Jungle

It doesn’t mean he loves you less. He loves all his giraffes equally.

If you have a photo of Sophie, please send to me at Abaskmktg@yahoo.com. If we can’t track her down, perhaps we could at least follow her travels.